Some of you might recognize the stuff I’m talking about below to be inspired by Brene Brown. I was first inspired by her Ted Talk. I read three of her books this year: Daring Greatly, The Gifts of Imperfection, and I Thought It Was Just Me, all of which I highly recommend. If you’ve ever read her work, you’ll notice that she’s influenced me in a big way as I talk about in the post below.
“If you wish to be a warrior prepare to get broken, if you wish to be an explorer prepare to get lost and if you wish to be a lover prepare to be both.” -Daniel Saint
This is my favorite quote from 2015.
I’ve wanted so badly to be able to love without being broken. I’ve wanted so badly to walk down the straight path of life (House + Marriage + Baby = Life) without getting lost along the way. And I’ve wanted so badly to be be able to learn without making mistakes.
Well, as I’m sure all of you will be shocked to learn, life doesn’t work that way. I’ve discovered that...drumroll please...you can’t succeed without failure. Shocking, I know. Making those mistakes is painful. Well, as it turns out that shame and suffering are part of the human experience. DAMNIT. I WANTED IT TO BE ALL SUNSHINE AND RAINBOWS.
Take-Away Point #1: As long as we are human beings capable of love and connection, we will experience emotional pain and suffering.
Have I blown your mind yet?
How do you experience human connection without facing the shame of rejection? You can’t. How do you experience love without letting yourself get hurt? You can’t. How can you practice self-compassion while letting people walk all over you? You can’t. How can you succeed without failing? You can’t. How can you be creative without taking risks? How can you learn a foreign language without making mistakes? How do you cultivate respect without setting boundaries? You can’t. How do you hide from shame? You can’t.
You can imagine how disappointed I was to discover this.
In order to genuinely connect with others, we have to be open. We have to emotionally expose ourselves. We have to take the risk that they might reject us.
Courage is risking being disappointed. Courage is to speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.
Embracing this new philosophy, and finding myself utterly alone in early 2015, I leaned in and I leaned in HARD.
I leaned into life and I leaned into my relationships. I leaned into my workaholism. I leaned into jiujitsu. I leaned into working out, lifting weights, and dieting. I gave everything and everyone my all until I had nothing left.
I said to life, “Okay, I’m here! I’m vulnerable! I’ve exposed my heart and my soul. Show me what you got! Give it to me, baby! You said if I loved and took risks and was vulnerable, then I would get love back. You said I had to pay it forward and then I would get the returns. Pay up!”
I had invested my whole heart into everything and everyone around me and I wanted my money back. I’d worked hard and I wanted my adviser to acknowledge that. I was a good friend and I wanted people to be as equally receptive to me as I was to them. I desperately sought validation from everyone around me: Was I good enough? I wanted everyone to tell me that I was.
It turns out there’s a difference between being brave and being stupid.
As I went through my extreme vulnerability phase, I thought to myself, “WHAT? BUT I THOUGHT LOVE BEGETS MORE LOVE? HOW CAN PEOPLE BE SUCH TERRIBLE, SELFISH JERKS? PEOPLE ARE TERRIBLE, I HATE PEOPLE” I screamed inwardly as people around me tore my heart out and trampled on it on the cold, hard linoleum floor over and over again. I was being vulnerable with people, why weren’t they returning the favor? Why were people taking advantage of me? Why were people pulling away from me, changing the subject, and re-directing conversations toward themselves? Couldn’t they see that I’d given them my all? And now they were leaving me out in the cold, alone and resentful.
I believed very strongly that being open and vulnerable with people was the key to happiness and connection, and as a result I was very open with people. But I was hurt many times by people who have taken advantage and used me for my openness and vulnerability. Thus began The Dark Ages of 2015.
I declared to myself and many people around me: “I don't think I can get close with anyone for a long time. I feel so jaded... Like my heart has been ripped out, used, and then thrown out by so many people this year. I can’t trust anyone ever again. I will never love again.”
I told myself that I wanted to end all of my human relationships once and for all, which created a dark cloud over my life. I started only seeing the negative and selfish sides of people. I built walls around my heart. I wanted to bury myself in a hole and never come out. I wanted to take a long nap and never wake up. I wanted to hide in my room and never leave. I had extinguished the fire of human love and connection in my life and in my heart. I had extinguished my purpose for being. I tried again to lean in to work, but wasn’t very successful this time. Without the fire of human connection, my life and my work was meaningless.
I read more deeply into Brene Brown’s work and I discovered something that she’d been saying all along, but I’d never really listened:
Take Away Point #2: You should only be vulnerable with people who have earned your trust.
OH.
Duh.
I learned a hard and valuable lesson that setting boundaries, waiting to establish trust, and protecting your vulnerabilities is just as important as being open and vulnerable.
I found that protecting your vulnerabilities allows you to feel safe so that you can be more open with the people who are the most important to you about the things that are most important to you.
What does protecting your vulnerabilities look like? It’s different for everyone. For example, I get nervous speaking Uyghur because I still make a lot of mistakes and I feel like it makes me look stupid. There are some people I know who make fun of me, or roll their eyes, or sigh, or are impatient with me when I make mistakes or when I ask them to repeat. Protecting my vulnerabilities doesn’t mean I should never speak Uyghur. It means I shouldn’t speak Uyghur with people who make me feel bad about myself when I do so. It means finding people who I know are patient with me enough to speak slowly and repeat themselves when I need them to, and practicing as much as I can with them.
For the Chinese government, it means keeping tight control over poor populations, while allowing the middle class more freedom. As Heberer and Gobel (2011) state, “In a seemingly contradictory fashion, authoritarian rule thus creates a limited space in which community self-governance is allowed and even desired.” I know, weird analogy. But it really resonated with me! When I read that, I was like, “That’s it!!! That’s it! Protecting your vulnerabilities grants you freedom!!”
As another example, protecting your vulnerabilities might mean not getting wasted at a party with your co-workers. It doesn’t mean you should never drink or you should never go out with your co-workers. It means having a few drinks with your closest friends, but keeping the alcohol at a minimum when you’re with people you don’t know super well.
Other examples would be not sharing your deepest darkest secret with a person you just met, or not asking an untrustworthy or unreliable friend for help at a time of need.
People have to earn your trust. It shouldn’t just happen automatically. Otherwise, you will end up emotionally exposed without the trust and care needed to make you feel safe.
The more mistakes you make, the more likely you are to succeed... BUT only when the people who you are making the mistakes in front of are willing and able to express compassion and empathy when you fail.
In the same way, setting boundaries allows you to be compassionate: How can you be compassionate to people when they’re walking all over you? Practicing self-compassion is the most selfless thing you can do: How can you be kind to others when you’re beating yourself up? Resting and relaxing allows you to be more productive: How can you work when you’re burned out?
I learned that I have to be open to the possibility of getting hurt every time I connect with another human. Because people will let you down. They will hurt you. Things will go wrong. You are not perfect and you never will be, just in the same way that the people around you are not perfect and they never will be.
I learned that I need to be brave, but not careless. And that is a dangerous, unknown, tricky, and shaky balance beam to walk on. If I ever walk that line successfully, I’ll let you know. I’ll deserve a gold medal for that one. But I’m going to keep trying.
There was a point and time in my life this year when I was very open with people. Then I swung all the way on the other end of the spectrum: I will never love again, I declared. But now as this year is coming to a close, I’m slowly creeping towards the middle again, a balance point between extremes, standing between binaries.
As long as there is connection, love, and vulnerability, there will be pain and shame. I recognize and accept this fact of human nature. I can and should be vulnerable--with my relationships, with my jiujitsu, with my writing, and with learning new languages. Otherwise my relationships and skills will never progress. Yet, that does not mean I should be learning with everyone I come across with. It means establishing boundaries with who and what I can be vulnerable with, and being conscious of protecting myself from those vulnerabilities--not sharing my deepest secrets with the co-worker I just met, not picking the 250 white belt to roll, not insisting on speaking Uyghur with the people who I know will make fun of me. But it does mean calling my friends to share an embarrassing story. It does mean being willing to practice new languages. It does mean trying new jiujitsu moves on the mat. It does mean submitting articles for publication. It does mean asking for help when I need it.
I started off 2015 asking myself, How can I love without getting broken? And I’m ending 2015 asking, How can I be more compassionate? How can I build trust with the people I care about?
At heart I’m an explorer, lover, and warrior. And to that I say to life, BRING IT ON!!!! And I will probably always lean on the side of openness with people because in the depths of my heart I yearn for love, belonging, and human connection. But next time I’m going to look before I leap.
UGH, VULNERABILITY AND PAIN AND LOVE AND HAPPINESS AND HOPE!
...Ugh... LIFE!
Oh and one more lesson I learned in 2015:
Sarah, thank you so much for writing this. I really needed to read this, and I didn't even know it.
ReplyDeleteYAY! I'm so glad you liked it. :)
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